Friday, January 26, 2018

Make Your Own Acai Bowl at Home, With Help From the Current's Food Editor

If you balked at the idea of spending $10 on a bowl of fruit, there’s always the DIY route. But this isn’t for beginners. For starters, you’ll have to be a savvy enough shopper to find the acai puree packs on local shelves at either Central Market, Natural Grocers, Sprouts or Whole Foods Market. Each bag contains four packs of acai puree. Pitaya/dragonfruit is even harder to source so I stuck with acai for this experiment.

Once you’ve scored your main ingredient, you’ll want to supplement with blueberries, strawberries, and maybe a banana. I strongly suggest making sure your fruit is ripe and ready to use, freezing it overnight and using that fresh-frozen fare for your bowl.

Then, if you’re trying to emulate your favorite bowl from Rise Up, Revolucion, what have you, you’ll want to add some super foods to the mix, and again, this is where your at-home bowl can get expensive. Rather than buying boxed flaxseed, chia seed, or hempseed, try popping into the bulk section of your favorite grocery store and pick up what you’ll need for a bowl or two rather than a box of stuff that may go unused. As it is, you’re only really saving between $2 and $3 by making them yourself, though I didn’t factor in shopping around for ingredients.

There’s definitely an art to building a creamy bowl that’s textured and as awe-inspiring as the store-bought variety. Here’s how my at-home experiment turned out.

Ingredients

1 pack acai puree

2 large strawberries, frozen

2 tablespoons blueberries, frozen

1/4 banana, frozen

Splash of milk of choice (I used almond)

Fruits for topping (I used bananas, strawberries, blueberries and raspberries)

Directions // Combine acai, frozen fruit and milk in a blender and blend until smooth. Scrape down sides if needed. Pour half of the granola into bowl and add blended fruit. Go nuts with your fruit toppings.

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